Real Conservatives Stand Behind Barack Obama...

Well, it's 11AM on Monday and I still haven't heard from Matthew Yglesias. This tells me two things. The first is that Saturday's comment probably was from the super-genius himself. The second is that he probably said something close to "Oh, shit!" about one second after he posted said comment. And here I was thinking I had a legitimate shot at acquiring a new BFF.

It's been so lonely since Roger walked out of my life...

Anyway, if Matty's "It's all the Constitution's fault" bullshit didn't get you to marveling at the sort of dimwit that can get through Harvard, get a load of this: Along comes Harvard graduate Andrew Sullivan to explain to us that real conservatives understand that real conservatism means supporting real liberals like Barack Obama.

No, really.

Here's the best part, and make sure you don't have liquid in your mouth when you read it:

I believe that although Obama is indeed a liberal in the sense that he believes government really can and must improve the lives of its citizens, he is much much more like a real conservative than his detractors on right and left.

Especially Sarah Palin, who will no doubt replace Joe Biden on the ticket in 2012. Oh, wait. Sarah isn't a real conservative... Joe stays.

The change he still represents at home is an abandonment of this ideological, red-blue abstract form of politics toward a realistic, pragmatic, reasonable center.

Which is exactly why he hasn't been able to pass a health care reform bill over the past 13 months... He's just too damn centrist for the Senate and the American people! Either that of the Constitution's all fucked up, I don't remember which.

Abroad, he represents an attempt to defuse the dangerously polarizing religious and cultural warfare that is fomenting terrorism, and further fusing religion and politics in so many places across the world.

And strangely enough, he's doing it for the most part by continuing the policies of the Bush Administration.

In this sense, I regard him as a vital, indispensable figure standing against the forces of ideology and religious warfare, whose failure could lead to catastrophic consequences for our future.

Whereas I regard him as a vital, indispensable figure standing between Andrew Sullivan and reality.

I remain utterly unapologetic about this belief.

That's rather unfortunate for you, actually. Consider it a stroke of luck that The Atlantic isn't paying you to make sense.

I stand proudly as a conservative behind him.

There's an image I could have done without. 

And the more deranged the right becomes, and the more confused and angry the left gets, the more it seems important that he succeed in his presidency. Not win: succeed.

That's lucky for Andrew and Obama then, because not winning seems to be the Administration's specialty at the moment.

Every political career ends in failure, because the problems that need to be fixed cede to different problems.

That may be true, but wouldn't it be nice if Obama's political career didn't end in failure before his first set of mid-term elections?

Because the tragedy of human life and politics is never resolved. Because a politics aiming for "victory" is not a politics; it is a dangerous and self-destructive delusion.

You know, you just can't make this sort of stuff up.

Comments

[richard mcenroe]

"Real Conservatives Stand Behind Barack Obama..."

Wearing hip waders. With hobnailed soles against the day when it becomes time to measure our carbon footprint against his arrogant ass...

[richard mcenroe]

Although it's nice to see Andy still has enough respect for classical values to use the word 'proud' properly... if you know what I mean and I think you do...

[Mike Myers]

Ol Power Glutes is more full of it than usual today.

[Dennis the Peasant]

Evidently the only real conservatives around these days are Andrew and Charles Johnson. Who knew?

[aelfheld]

I stand proudly as a conservative behind him.

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

[JeffS]

There's an image I could have done without.

But possibly one that Sully relishes.

[David]

I think you need a real good amount of Arkansas polio weed to believe this stuff. Slow news day I guess.

[DaMav]

There's an image I could have done without.

Coffee arc to keyboard one liner. ROFL!

[John]

Cue up the homophobic haters. 3-2-1...

[just passin by]

Sullivan says "Conservatism, if it means anything, is a resistance to ideology..."

Then he refines his definition of conservatism as a "critique" of "...liberals' belief that they really could transform the world through better government, of the new left's critique that the personal is political, and of the stifling of human nature, individualism and freedom..."

Messiahcare is NOT "transforming the world through better government"? How surprising to know that. Apparently, that applies to Cap and Tax as well.

The Messiah's attacks on Americans as bitter, gun-wielding, Bible-thumpers wasn't personal either. "Get in their faces" was a metaphysical call for his followers to rationally engage conservatives, as SEIU members demonstrated so well.

I feel so morally degraded to be an oppositionist nihilist. Than you for showing me this clarity, Sullivan.

[bart]

Fomenting at the mouth philosopher Sullivan is sounding more pondiferous and profundant by the day. Since he's gone all post post-modern/normal into the realm of post-victory, though, his literairiness might be improved by assigning some real (human) life metrics to his concept of "success"-- such as, when are Conservatives and the pragmatic American political center going to sing We Are the World and how much magic money will be spent?

To Owe or not to Owe, that is the question:
Whether tis Nobel-er in the Congress to inflict
The bonds and values of outrageous Socialist debt
Or to cast votes against an O of bobbles
And by opposing ruinous schemes end them.

[David]

"Cue up the homophobic haters. 3-2-1..."

Hi Lefty!

Actually I (for one) don't hate Drew Sullivan at all. I hate his ideas, mostly because they're badly-thought out and reflect a poor understanding of this country and how it works (something Drew shares with fellow limey Chris Hitchens, but I digress.)

Perhaps you missed Dennis' post below on noted fuckwit Matthew Yglesias. It explains how it is possible to dislike an idea without disliking the person.

Perhaps some who leaves such a comment is incapable of understanding such a thing.

[David]

"It's been so lonely since Roger walked out of my life..."

We're here for you, Dennis.

Speaking of which, how's the diet thingy going?

[John]

What?

My cat walked across my keyboard and wrote something more coherent.

[Simon]

Sully says - In some ways, I believe, the pinnacle of this conservative achievement came in the presidency of George H W Bush and the premiership of John Major (see my 1999 NYT essay, The End Of Britain"). They both solidified ....blah, blah, blah

I see now - Sully likes failures. If everyone criticises your incompetence then you must be a centrist.

Obama - most centrist president since Carter.

[Dennis the Peasant]

John-

Your cat is more coherent than Andrew Sullivan? That's a pretty hurtful and insensitive thing to say, you know. Andrew's probably crying in a corner at this very moment.

Cue up another homophobic hater. 3-2-1...

[Dennis the Peasant]

David-

6 lbs. so far.

[Dennis the Peasant]

And John-

It's all Andrew's fault anyway, he could have said:

I stand proudly as a conservative with him.

Let's face it, he walked into that one on his own.

[David]

"My cat walked across my keyboard and wrote something more coherent."

That wasn't your cat, that was your pussy.

Too easy.

[sparky the horrid commie]

Consider it a stroke of luck that The Atlantic isn't paying you to make sense.
andy seems to have made a career out of nonsense: "help! i've created a tower of babel and i can't get out!"

[andrew]

I wonder what Sullivan thinks of the hardball tactics the Dems are using to get rid of Rep. Massa.

[JeffS]

My cat walked across my keyboard and wrote something more coherent.

Pass that on to Sully, please. His beagles ought to able to out-perform cats.

[hyphenventilating]

Sully's sexuality has become a boring ho-hum why-was-it-ever-the-major-part-of-his-political-identity kind of matter. Of more interest is how the man has deviated to a Prog Cabin agenda and calls it "conservatism."

Oh, and how he uses too many freshman level abstract nouns and still gets published.

[Dennis the Peasant]

Oh, and how he uses too many freshman level abstract nouns and still gets published.

It's probably why he's never been accused of being sophmoric.